Article

An Introduction to iTunes 5’s New Features

By Jerrod H. ● Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Apple today announced a long-awaited major revision to its iTunes software, iTunes 5, available immediately for both Mac and PC.

In June, iLounge’s Editors compiled a list of their Top 10 iTunes 5 Feature Requests. The incredible volume of reader responses this article generated clearly indicates the widespread anticipation of a non-trivial iTunes update.

It’s finally here. While it’s obvious iTunes 5 doesn’t include all the features that we (and our readers) had hoped for, we’re generally impressed with what we’ve seen so far: iTunes 5 boasts playlist folders, Windows contact syncing, parental controls, a new search function, album reviews, a slick new look, and more.

Here is a brief overview of each of these features: Download iTunes 5 and follow along!

Playlist Folders:

Satisfying one of the most-requested iTunes features, Apple gave iTunes 5 the ability to categorize playlists into “folders.”

To create a new playlist folder, simply choose “New Folder” from iTunes’ “File” menu. A new folder will be created in the Source column, ready for you to rename and drag-and-drop playlists into.

Tip: If you select the playlist folder in iTunes’ Source column, the Library window will contain the contents of all playlists inside that folder.

Disappointingly, however, Apple’s new (iPod Software Updater 2005-09-06), released today, does not include iPod updates to allow these playlist folders to be navigable on the iPod itself. Instead, the individual playlists will appear on the iPod as they did when using iTunes 4.9 and below.

Still, we’ll be using this feature extensively, as we’ve had a couple dozen playlists crowding our iTunes Music Libraries’ “Source” columns for ages.

Search Bar:

One of iTunes’ neatest new features is hidden unless you try to use it. Type a few letters into the familiar-looking iTunes “Search” field in the upper right corner of the display, and you’ll be surprised to find a new “Search Bar” appear at the top of your library window.

Much like the Spotlight Search Bar that MacOS X Tiger users are no doubt familiar with, this search bar allows the user to easily narrow their existing search with one or two additional clicks. Ever typed a search request, only to find there’s 300 valid results? Narrow them down by Type (the buttons on the left), or field (the buttons on the right), and the long list of results will instantly shrink accordingly.

Sure… this feature is helpful within your own library, but what about the Music Store? Try a search while viewing the Music Store… you’ll notice the same “Search Bar” appears along with a new search results panel, as below:

Tip: You can permanently activate the “Search Bar” by using the “Show Search Bar” menu item in iTunes’ “Edit” menu.

While this new Spotlight-esque search enhancement is neat, we were disappointed to see that it is lacking one key analog to a popular Spotlight feature—the ability to instantly save a search as a “Smart Folder” (or Smart Playlist, in this case).

Windows Contact Synchronizing:

Since the 2nd Generation iPod, Mac iPod users have been able to easily keep their computer’s contact information stored in Apple’s “Address Book” program synchronized with the iPod using MacOS X’s iSync software. Since iTunes 4.8, this functionality has been incorporated into iTunes itself… but again for Mac users only. All the while, Windows users had been required the to export vCard files from their favorite contacts management program and drag-and-drop them to a folder on the iPod. No longer is the process so un-elegant, and neither is “Enable Disk Use” still a prerequisite; now, Windows users can set up iTunes to automatically synchronize contacts from either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express to the iPod.

To do so, open iTunes’ “Preferences” window from the “File” menu, and choose the “iPod” tab (your iPod must be connected). The appropriate settings are on this panel.

Parental Controls:

Also new to iTunes 5 is the ability for administrators/parents to restrict various capabilities for unauthorized users or children.

To activate these features, open iTunes’ Preferences window, and click on the “Parental” tab. This will reveal 4 important (and largely self-explanatory) control features, shown in the screenshot below:

Note that these settings are worthless unless you activate the “Click the lock to prevent future changes” feature at the bottom of the window, preventing unauthorized users from changing the security settings.

Though none of iLounge’s editors is a parent, we think this feature will be a welcome addition for many. iLounge’s previous sentiments regarding uncensored pornographic podcasts no longer apply… Kudos, Apple!

Album Reviews:

The iTunes Music Store now accomodates the viewing of Album Reviews. Reviews can be read by simply navigating to an album page in the iTunes Music Store, such as “Demon Days” by Gorillaz. Only 1000 albums display reviews at this time.

It appears that Album Reviews are currently provided by “All Music Guide,” and user reviews cannot be submitted. Thus, this feature improvement is not terribly major, but the additional information is welcome.

Lyrics:

iTunes 5 now includes the ability to store lyrics text as a part of each Track’s “Get Info” panel. Simply select any song in your library, right-click, and choose “Get Info.” You’ll notice a “Lyrics” tab, into which you can paste as much text as you want.

Click OK, and the lyrics are stored along with the song.

It remains to be seen whether or not there will be an upcoming iPod Software Update that will allow these lyrics to be displayed on current and past iPods. However, if the new iPod nano’s capability to do so is any indication, there will be.

There’s one item about lyrics that leads iLounge’s editors to feel that Apple has missed an opportunity for a neat feature: lyrics content cannot yet be used as a criteria for a Smart Playlist. Imagine creating a smart playlist of all songs which contain the word “love,” for example. Unfortunately, all we can do for now is imagine, although we’re sure we’ll see this feature in either an iTunes update or as a third-party add-on.

Easy-to-enable Bookmarking and Shuffle Exclusion:

In previous versions of iTunes, the user needed AppleScripts or direct file manipulation to enable the “audiobook-like” automatic bookmarking capability on any old song. In iTunes 5, it’s as easy as clicking a check box.

Simply right click on any track, select “Get Info,” and in the “Info” tab, you’ll find the following check boxes:

The first, of course, will be a godsend to iTunes users who like to rip their own audiobooks, and the second will be helpful to, for example, iTrip users annoyed by the intermittent beeping in their shuffle play (simply check this box for all your “iTrip” station tracks).

New Shuffling Algorithm:

iTunes 5’s new “Smart Shuffle” setting allows the user to determine how “random” the shuffle feature is. To utilize this feature, open iTunes’ Preferences, and click on the “Playback” tab. You’ll see the following:

Do you crave true variety, and hate it when iTunes plays two songs in a row by the same artist? Move the slider towards “less likely”. Want more of a radio station-like “Double-Header” format, where you’re likely to hear more than one song in a row by the same artist? Move the slider toward “more likely.”

We were originally surprised to see this slightly geeky feature implemented in Apple’s “simplicity-oriented” iTunes software, but we think it will be a neat feature either for those who questioned the randomness of iTunes’ shuffle feature, or for those who simply want more control.

Conclusions:

How do iLounge’s editors feel about iTunes 5? Generally great. We have a few beefs (i.e. Podcasts now show up in the Music Library, no lyrics in smart playlists, same old visualizer, and importing/burning preferences are now buried under “Advanced” settings), but all in all, we feel that iTunes 5 is a healthy mix of new features and ease-of-use.

Comments

1

An author data field would have been nice for audiobooks.

When are we going to get adjustable gaps between songs? Most people clamor for gapless but I listen to mostly classical and jazz and tracks are just too close togther as things are now. Some tracks/music just don’t sound right when jammed too close togther, they require a little breathing room or time to digest.

Posted by zymonk in TX on September 7, 2005 at 6:38 PM (CDT)

1

The Remember Playback Position and Skip When Shuffling options are great- EXCEPT that they don’t show when when you select multiple songs, which makes them totally useless. I am not going to individually right click on 300 This American Life episodes, and 100ish iTrip stations.

Posted by superbad in TX on September 7, 2005 at 6:52 PM (CDT)

1

Oh, and why can’t we do On the Fly transcoding with regular (non-Shuffle) iPods? I *know* it will make syncing slow, but it will still be faster than manually transcoding all my lossless files to mp3 like I do now.

Posted by superbad in TX on September 7, 2005 at 6:55 PM (CDT)

1

Interesting that there is yet another Apple UI. The window corners are not as rounded as on other Apple applications.

Posted by parabaraba in TX on September 7, 2005 at 8:01 PM (CDT)

1

Jerrod, do you use a Mac? iTunes looks way better than Windows. Either that or I’m missing some sort of skin option…

~Dan

Posted by papayaninja in TX on September 7, 2005 at 9:13 PM (CDT)

1

They also took away the option to not show the iTunes music store. Just incase we forgot about it?

Posted by JuanoTejano in TX on September 7, 2005 at 9:21 PM (CDT)

1

papayaninja—

Yes, the screenshots above were taken using the Mac version of iTunes. However, the difference between this and the Windows version should not be much. Really only the Preferences and Get Info panels are significantly uglier on Windows.

Posted by Jerrod H. in TX on September 7, 2005 at 9:39 PM (CDT)

1

JuanoTejano—

Feel free to use the Parental Control features on yourself… you can hide the Music Store that way.

Posted by Jerrod H. in TX on September 7, 2005 at 9:41 PM (CDT)

1

Am I imagining things? If you look under Prefs-Advanced-Burning, it now appears that you can select no gap when burning an audio CD.

Meg

Posted by megsaint in TX on September 7, 2005 at 11:01 PM (CDT)

1

What if I don’t want to have my Podcasts in the Library? Is there someway to stop that? Thanks!

Posted by z_master011 in TX on September 7, 2005 at 11:04 PM (CDT)

1

Megsaint—

I believe that option has been there before, but if you were to try it, you’d still notice a small gap between your songs… it’s in the nature of MP3/AAC/___-encoding itself to create a gap *in the file*.

1

I’m so glad the iTunes podcasts are part of the Library now and can be incorporated into Smart playlists.

Just the other day I gave up on the iTunes podcasts because they were a separate item. Now I can consider subscribing via iTunes again.

Posted by Miraz in TX on September 7, 2005 at 11:54 PM (CDT)

1

Am i the only one to notice that the “Remember playback position” option works on mp3’s also. Isn’t this a big deal. You don’t have to reencode into an AAC to have bookmarking in iTunes. Of course it doen’t carry onto the iPod (or at least not my 3G) but it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the article.

Posted by cruss in TX on September 7, 2005 at 11:55 PM (CDT)

1

z_master011 - I was irked by that as well - Have iTunes display the search bar (Ctrl+Shift+B), and select “Music”

Posted by rob214 in TX on September 8, 2005 at 12:18 AM (CDT)

1

Just after I launched the newly installed iTunes 5 on my PC it had to go through a progress bar that said it was updating music library. Then after I synched my iPod the next time it reloaded about 1500 of my 3800 song library. Has anyone seen this? And if so, what was iTunes doing?

Thanks

Posted by drcooper in TX on September 8, 2005 at 12:33 AM (CDT)

1

I was really excited about the Playlist Folders, since I have dozens of them and all relevant to some major categories that would make excellent folders - needless to say, very, very disappointed that Apple didn’t update iPod software to implement that.

Same issue with the lyrics.

And what about fixing the dynamic update of smart playlists in the iPod?

And where’s tetris, dammit?!?

In other words, the iPod software update could have used more cowbell. Come on Apple… you’re better than this, baby.

I didn’t spend $450 on the 60GB iPod Photo to be shafted less than 6 months later.

Posted by rob214 in TX on September 8, 2005 at 12:33 AM (CDT)

1

Like drcooper, I had about 380 songs reload on my iPod after update. Also now, which is very annnnnoying, I have the Podcast broadcasters listed as individual artists under Music>Artists on my iPod menu. The update sync changed this as it was not this way before. How to I get those Podcaster names out of my Music>Artists folder without dumping the whole lot? If that’s the case,and I have to unsync them I am sure I won’t be the only one to dump all the Podcasts if I have to navigate through them in the Artists menu. It’s clunky.

Posted by smoyerjx in TX on September 8, 2005 at 12:55 AM (CDT)

1

Still can’t sync contacts and calendar. If you’re using Outlook 2003, for some reason you get an error that says ‘The iPod <your ipod> cannot be updated. Unknown error occurred -50’. I am one of three people so far that is reporting this problem on the Apple Discussion board. I have Security and all interfering anti-virus, firewalls, etc. turned off and I still get this error. If anyone has a solution, it would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by Teknojunkie in TX on September 8, 2005 at 1:23 AM (CDT)

1

Too late, I just dumped all the Podcasts and unsubscribed from all of them in iTunes. It became too complicated and I just don’t want all all that clutter on my iPod. There’s 250 artists listed already and I hate to get confused with the addition of another 30 many non-music names on the iPod’s menu.

I predict that mess will either be fixed or become a setback for those who think Podcasts synced in Itunes are the big thing. Podcasts? In the end, I can get the info faster by reading. No big loss.